Renewing America

Outsourcing remains a contentious political issue as lawmakers, analysts, and business leaders debate its effect on U.S. job creation and the role of corporate tax policy in shipping jobs overseas, explains this Backgrounder.

Matthew Slaughter argues that tax increases on the foreign operations of U.S. based multinationals would not create American jobs, but destroy them. For many global firms there is an inherent complementarity between foreign and U.S. operations.

Both parties seem to agree that the way to get Americans back to work is to create the right incentives. But Amity Shlaes argues that there may be too much "nudging" going on. Perhaps having too many "choice architects" is making the recovery unsatisfying.

The corporate tax code should explicitly promote the international competitiveness of American businesses and encourage innovation by providing incentives for the drivers of productivity and innovation, says Robert D. Atkinson in this Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report.

In this Bloomberg op-ed, Amity Shlaes says that the Democratic Party must decide which is more important-its eagerness to trash the Bush-Reagan tax legacy, or its eagerness for recovery. The planned tax increases would diminish the effect of the billions planned for infrastructure, just as tax increases undermined the Public Works Administration or the Works Project Administration in the 1930s.

In this Bloomberg article, Amity Shlaes argues that John McCain’s fiscal program may look expensive on paper but it will provide a valuable infrastructure that will shore up the American house in ways that will prove more than worth it later.

Scott D. Dyreng, Michelle Hanlon, and Edward L. Maydew say they have developed a measure to investigate the extent to which some firms are able to avoid taxes over periods as long as ten years, and how predictive one-year tax rates are for tax avoidance in the long run.

The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change reports that the full utilization of international emission trading by Japan reduces the carbon price, welfare loss, and impact on its energy-intensive exports.

CFR Experts Guide

The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.

New Council Special Reports

Campbell evaluates the implications of the Boko Haram insurgency and recommends that the United States support Nigerian efforts to address the drivers of Boko Haram, such as poverty and corruption, and to foster stronger ties with Nigerian civil society.

Koblentz argues that the United States should work with other nuclear-armed states to manage threats to nuclear stability in the near term and establish processes for multilateral arms control efforts over the longer term.

The authors argue that it is essential to begin working now to expand and establish rules and norms governing armed drones, thereby creating standards of behavior that other countries will be more likely to follow.

2014 Annual Report

Learn more about CFR’s mission and its work over the past year in the 2014 Annual Report. The Annual Report spotlights new initiatives, high-profile events, and authoritative scholarship from CFR experts, and includes a message from CFR President Richard N. Haass.Read and download »